[AT] Portable Trailer lights from Harbor Freight

[charlie hill]

Dean are you saying you had the HF lights hooked to the 4 pin connector and 
the
actual trailer lights were still hooked to the 7 pin connector?  If so, 
disconnect the
7 pin connector and see if anything changes.  Seems to me you might have
dual ground paths going and thus are back feeding a circuit or two.

Charlie

-----Original Message----- 
From: Dean VP
Sent: Thursday, August 10, 2017 2:53 AM
To: 'Antique tractor email discussion group'
Subject: [AT] Portable Trailer lights from Harbor Freight

Several months ago this was a topic on Atis when Harbor Freight had these 
light sets on sale for like $5 or $10 or so.  Well I bought two sets of them 
In case I needed then on my trailer and the second set to carry around in my 
truck for anyone else who might need them at an Antique Tractor show.  Well 
recently I decided maybe I ought to hooked one up to my truck and trailer to 
see how I liked them.  Didn't work so good.  The first indication was it 
appeared I had a crossed wire or poor ground since whenever I turned on a 
turn signal both turn signals blinked at a lower brightness.  Chased 
grounding, cleaned contacts, etc, etc.  No solution. Keep in mind my normal 
trailer lights are working fine. Then I found out that if the tail lights 
were on, night time, whenever I braked, both taillights would go out. Not 
dim, completely out.  That had me really going and then I found out that if 
the tail lights were not on, daytime, the brake lights worked just fine. 
Now that had my h!
ead completely spinning.

So after a while of being completely dumfounded I finally realized I had 
another brand new set in the truck so hooked them up. Same damned thing. 
Let me reiterate, my regular lights on the trailer work perfectly.  The only 
difference is the HF lights are fed by the small 4 pin connector right next 
to the 7 pin connector that feeds the normal trailer lights. Now One could 
come to the conclusion that there must be something wrong with the 4 pin 
connector circuits  or  both HF light sets are defective. I have tested the 
4 pin connector with a volt meter and the voltage appears correctly with no 
cross talk between pins for the turn signals.  I get a good low ohm ground 
measurement between the ground on the 4 pin socket and the ground on the 
truck.

I'm stuck.  At the present time I am convinced I have two identically 
defective light sets from Harbor Freight.  Primarily because I cannot come 
up with anything that could be wrong in the 4 pin circuits that could 
produce these kinds of weird results. Am I overlooking something really 
simple? Or even something complex. It has me stumped if it isn't the lights 
themselves.   Unfortunately I have nothing else to check the 4 pin connector 
with here.  I suppose there may be a commercial tester for them but I 
haven't looked for one.  Maybe I'm just flat stubborn believing it is the 
lights.


_______________________________________________
AT mailing list
http://www.antique-tractor.com/mailman/listinfo/at